Draft Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability

AGENCY:

Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION:

Issuance, availability of Draft Regulatory Guide (DG)-1234.

ADDRESSES:

You may submit comments by any one of the following methods. Please include Docket ID NRC-2010-0249 in the subject line of your comments. Comments submitted in writing or in electronic form will be posted on the NRC Web site and on the Federal rulemaking Regulations.gov. Because your comments will not be edited to remove any identifying or contact information, the NRC cautions you against including any information in your submission that you do not want to be publicly disclosed.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

R. A. Jervey, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone: (301) 251-7404 or e-mail Richard.Jervey@nrc.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Introduction

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued for public comment a draft guide in the agency's “Regulatory Guide” series. This series was developed to describe and make available to the public such information as methods that are acceptable to the NRC staff for implementing specific parts of the NRC's regulations, techniques that the staff uses in evaluating specific problems or postulated accidents, and data that the staff needs in its review of applications for permits and licenses.

The draft regulatory guide, entitled, “Water Sources for Long-Term Recirculation Cooling Following a Loss-Of-Coolant Accident,” is temporarily identified by its task number, DG-1234, which should be mentioned in all related correspondence. DG-1234 is proposed Revision 4 of Regulatory Guide 1.82. This revision incorporates current state of knowledge found during NRC-sponsored research and plant-specific analysis and testing applicable to Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) strainer performance and debris blockage by Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) generated debris.

This guide describes methods that the staff of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission considers acceptable to implement requirements regarding the sumps and suppression pools that provide water sources for emergency core cooling, containment heat removal, or containment atmosphere cleanup systems. It also provides guidelines for evaluating the adequacy and the availability of the sump or suppression pool for long-term recirculation cooling following a loss-of-coolant accident. This guide applies to both pressurized-water reactor and boiling-water reactor types of light-water reactors.

II. Further Information

The NRC staff is soliciting comments on DG-1234. Comments may be accompanied by relevant information or supporting data, and should mention DG-1234 in the subject line. Comments submitted in writing or in electronic form will be made available to the public in their entirety through the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). Comments would be most helpful if received by September 10, 2010. Comments received after that date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the NRC is able to ensure consideration only for comments received on or before this date. Although a time limit is given, comments and suggestions in connection with items for inclusion in guides currently being developed or improvements in all published guides are encouraged at any time.

The NRC requests that any party soliciting or aggregating comments received from other persons for submission to the NRC inform those persons that the NRC will not edit their comments to remove any identifying or contact information, and therefore, they should not include any information in their comments that they do not want publicly disclosed.

Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for documents filed under Docket ID NRC-2010-0249. Address questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher 301-492-3668; e-mail Carol.Gallagher@nrc.gov.

Mail comments to: Chief, Rules, Announcements, and Directives Branch (RADB), Office of Administration, Mail Stop: TWB-05-B01M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, or by fax to RADB at (301) 492-3446.

You can access publicly available documents related to this notice using the following methods:

NRC's Public Document Room (PDR): The public may examine and have copied for a fee publicly available documents at the NRC's PDR, Room O1 F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.

NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS): Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC are available electronically at the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this page, the public can gain entry into ADAMS, which provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC's PDR reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr.resource@nrc.gov. DG-1234 is available electronically under ADAMS Accession Number ML092850003. The regulatory analysis may be found in ADAMS under Accession No. ML101610267. In addition, electronic copies of DG-1234 are available through the NRC=s public Web site under Draft Regulatory Guides in the “Regulatory Guides” collection of the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/.

Federal Rulemaking Web site: Public comments and supporting materials related to this notice can be found at http://www.regulations.gov by searching on Docket ID: NRC-2010-0249.

Regulatory guides are not copyrighted, and Commission approval is not required to reproduce them.